Overview

The following document provides an initial descriptive analysis and data coverage overview of the [Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. The data is provided in a standardised format from Willamette University. The data is available at a county level between 1967 - 2020 with improved coverage in more recent years. The below data overview incorporates only data from 2001-2020 (can be expanded easily). The data has been cleaned and grouped into 17 expenditure categories (listed in data tree below), 4 higher-level categories (comprised of the 17 lower-level categories), and as a county-level total expenditure. All plots are presented using the raw data, whereas the tables presenting the linear time trend results include results for both the raw data and linearly interpolated data.

Expenditure categories

The data is currently structured in county-year pairs with observations for 17 public expenditure categories. I have manually grouped these 17 categories into 4 higher categories (that can be changed/redefined easily!). The tree structure below displays all categories and groupings. As currently thought out, any or a combination of these categories will serve as outcome/dependent variables.

##                                     levelName
## 1  Total Public Expenditure                  
## 2   ¦--Commercial                            
## 3   ¦   ¦--Air Transportation                
## 4   ¦   ¦--Liquor Stores                     
## 5   ¦   °--Port Facilities                   
## 6   ¦--Public Welfare, Services & Facilities 
## 7   ¦   ¦--Education                         
## 8   ¦   ¦--Fire Protection                   
## 9   ¦   ¦--Health & Hospitals                
## 10  ¦   ¦--Housing & Community Development   
## 11  ¦   ¦--Public Services & Facilities      
## 12  ¦   °--Public Welfare                    
## 13  ¦--Administration & Misc.                
## 14  ¦   ¦--General Administration            
## 15  ¦   ¦--Interest on Debt                  
## 16  ¦   °--NEC                               
## 17  °--Infrastructure, Utilities & Regulation
## 18      ¦--Highways                          
## 19      ¦--Police, Corrections & Judicial    
## 20      ¦--Protective Inspection & Regulation
## 21      ¦--Utilities                         
## 22      °--Waste Management & Sewerage

Overview Plots

The below plots provide aggregated geographical (national, state, regional) summaries of expenditure categories and shares to demonstrate the composition of national expenditure across the categories. The final two plots demonstrate the composition of expenditure within the Public Welfare, Services & Facilities category.

Data Coverage: Broad Categories and Total Expenditure

The animations below show the data coverage at a county level of the 4 broad categories (purple) and total expenditure values (green). Coverage is strong at this level. (Apologies for the poor arrangement!)